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Rainey Reitman

Rainey Reitman serves as director of the activism team at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She is particularly interested in the intersection between personal privacy and technology, particularly social networking privacy, network security, web tracking, government surveillance, and online data brokers. She also works on issues related to financial censorship, free speech, and software patents.

Reitman is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends and supports unique, independent, nonprofit journalistic institutions. She, along with co-founders Daniel Ellsberg, Trevor Timm, and J.P. Barlow, received the 2013 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Journalism.

Reitman is a founder and steering committee member for the Chelsea Manning Support Network, a network of individuals and organizations advocating for the release of accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Private Chelsea Manning. Additionally, Reitman serves on the board of directors for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, a nonprofit whose mission is to organize and support an effective, national grassroots movement to restore civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. She is also a steering committee member of the Internet Defense League, a netroots coalition working to fend off threats to the free and open Web.

Prior to joining EFF, Reitman served as Director of Communications for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit advocacy and education organization promoting consumer privacy. She earned her BA from Bard College in Multidisciplinary Studies: Creative Writing, Russian & Gender Studies.

Today, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill designed to cut funding for NSA backdoors. The amendment passed overwhelmingly with strong bipartisan support: 293 ayes, 123 nays, and 1 present.

Book review and discussion questions for reading groups
In No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald shows that a modern investigative reporter doesn’t just need the courage to take on the United States government and established media. He also needs a whole lot of crypto.

Last week, the White House released its report on big data and its privacy implications, the result of a 90-day study commissioned by President Obama during his January 17 speech on NSA surveillance reforms.

Two days ago, we asked web developers for help.
EFF and Sunlight Foundation published an open call for help testing a tool and populating an open data format that would make it easier for everyday people to contact members of Congress. We already had a prototype, but we needed volunteers to conduct tests on each and every Congressional website.

Donate a Few Hours to Help Us Create a Free Software Backend for Contacting Congress, Make the World a Better Place for Digital Rights
UPDATE (4/16/14): We're lowering the threshold for getting prizes, take a look below.

There was a moralistic, unnecessary, and wholly unscientific new restriction enacted on funding for the National Institute of Health as part of the appropriations bill passed in January. The new legislative mandate forces researchers who rely on government funding to place anti-pornography filters on their computer networks.